Lahore Resolution

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Lahore Resolution
Muslim leaders from across British India at the All-India Muslim League Working Committee session in Lahore
Presented22 March 1940
Ratified23 March 1940; 84 years ago (1940-03-23)
LocationLahore
Author(s)Muhammad Zafarullah Khan
SignatoriesAll-India Muslim League
PurposeTo announce the declaration of independence from British India
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The Lahore Resolution (

Urdu: قراردادِ لاہور, Qarardad-e-Lahore; Bengali: লাহোর প্রস্তাব, Lahor Prostab), also called Pakistan Resolution, was written and prepared by Muhammad Zafarullah Khan[1][2][3] and was presented by A. K. Fazlul Huq, the Prime Minister of Bengal, was a formal political statement adopted by the All-India Muslim League on the occasion of its three-day general session in Lahore
on 22–24 March 1940. The resolution called for independent states as seen by the statement:

That geographically contiguous units are demarcated regions which should be constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North Western and Eastern Zones of (British) India should be grouped to constitute ‘independent states’ in which the constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.

Although the name "Pakistan" had been proposed by

Choudhary Rahmat Ali in his Pakistan Declaration,[4]
it was not until after the resolution that it began to be widely used.

Hindu-Muslim unity, irrevocably transformed himself for the cause of separate Muslim homeland called Pakistan.[5]

Historical context

Until the mid-1930s the Muslim leaders were trying to ensure maximum political safeguards for

Muslim culture; the heightened activity of Hindu Mahasabha, the hoisting of Congress tricolor, the singing of Bande Mataram, the Vidya Mandir scheme in the Central Provinces and the Wardha scheme of education, all were interpreted as proof of ‘Congress atrocities’. So, the Congress was clearly incapable of representing Muslim interests, yet it was trying to annihilate every other party."[6]

Therefore, by 1938–39, the idea of

M. A. Jinnah in an article in the London weekly Time & Tide on 9 March 1940.[7]
Jinnah wrote:

Democratic systems based on the concept of homogeneous nations such as England are very definitely not applicable to

coreligionist
.

About the Congress-led provincial governments, he wrote:

An India-wide attack on the Muslims was launched. In the five Muslim provinces every attempt was made to defeat the Muslim-led-coalition Ministries. In the six Hindu provinces a “

Royal Commission
to investigate their grievances.

Furthermore, he added:

Is it the desire (of

Hindu State…? …I feel certain that Muslim India
will never submit to such a position and will be forced to resist it with every means in their power.

In his concluding remarks he wrote:

While Muslim League irrevocably opposed to any

two nations who both must share the governance of their common motherland
.

Lahore Conference

A. K. Fazlul Huq presented the historical Lahore resolution in 1940.

The session was held on 22–24 March 1940, at Iqbal Park, Lahore. The welcome address was made by Sir Shah Nawaz Khan of Mamdot, as the chairman of the local reception committee. The various draft texts for the final resolution/draft were deliberated over by the Special Working Committee of the All India Muslim League[8]

The resolution text, unanimously approved by the Subject Committee, accepted the concept of a united homeland for Muslims[citation needed] and recommended the creation of an independent Muslim state.[9]

The resolution was moved in the general session by

Qazi Muhammad Essa from Balochistan and other leaders announced their support.[citation needed
]

The statement

30 March 1940: Newspapers printed news about Lahore Resolution, demanding division of India.

The resolution for the establishment of a separate homeland for the Muslims of British India passed in the annual session of the All India Muslim League held in Lahore on 22–24 March 1940 is a landmark document of Pakistan's history.[11] In 1946, it formed the basis for the decision of Muslim League to struggle for one state [ later named Pakistan] for the Muslims.[12] The statement declared:

No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless geographical contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary.[13]

The Hindu press and leaders were quick to describe the resolution as the demand for the creation of Pakistan; some people began to call it the Pakistan Resolution soon after the Lahore session of the Muslim League. It is landmark document in history of Pakistan.[11] Additionally, it stated:

That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in the units and in the regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights of the minorities.

Most importantly, to convince smaller provinces such as Sindh to join, it provided a guarantee:

That geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North Western and Eastern Zones of (British) India should be grouped to constitute 'independent states' in which the constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.

Full text

The full text of the resolution document was as follows:

"THE LAHORE RESOLUTION"

Resolved at the Lahore Session of All-India Muslim League held on 22nd-24th March, 1940.

(1)   While approving and endorsing the action taken by the Council and the Working Committee of the All Indian Muslim League as indicated in their resolutions dated the 10th of August, 17th and 18th of September and 22nd of October, 1939, and 3rd February 1940 on the constitutional issues, this Session of the All-Indian Muslim League emphatically reiterates that the scheme of federation embodied in the Government of India Act 1935, is totally unsuited to, and unworkable in the peculiar conditions of this country and is altogether unacceptable to Muslim India.

(2)   Resolved that it is the considered view of this Session of the All India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or acceptable to Muslims unless it is designed on the following basic principle, namely that geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North-Western and Eastern Zones of India, should be grouped to constitute “Independent States” in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.

(3) That adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards should be specifically provided in the constitution for minorities in these units and in these regions for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them; and in other parts of India where the Mussalmans are in a minority, adequate, effective and mandatory safeguards shall be specially provided in the constitution for them and other minorities for the protection of their religious, cultural, economic, political, administrative and other rights and interests in consultation with them.

(4) This Session further authorizes the Working Committee to frame a scheme of constitution in accordance with these basic principles, providing for the assumption finally by the respective regions of all powers such as defense, external affairs, communications, customs and such other matters as may be necessary."[14][15]

Interpretation

There remains a debate on whether the resolution envisaged two sovereign states in the eastern and western parts of British India. Abdul Hashim of the Bengal Muslim League interpreted the text as a demand for two separate countries.

H. S. Suhrawardy of Bengal, a member of the All India Muslim League, mooted the United Bengal
proposal with the support of Muslim and Hindu leaders, as well as the Governor of Bengal.

Although there were and continue to be disagreements on the interpretation of the resolution, it was widely accepted that it called for a separate Muslim state.[citation needed] Opposing opinions focus on the phrase "independent states" claiming this means Muslim majority provinces, i.e. Punjab, Sindh, etc. would be independent of each other. They ignore the phrase "geographically contiguous units." They also rely on the claims of certain Bengali nationalists who did not agree with one state. They accuse their opponents of diverting the "spirit" of the resolution.

The majority of the Muslim League leadership contended that it was intended for not only the separation of India but into only 2 states (Muslim majority and Hindu majority). Therefore, it is indeed a statement calling for independence and one Muslim state.[citation needed] Eventually, the name "Pakistan" was used for the envisioned state.

Dissent by nationalist Muslims in colonial India

Main article:
Opposition to the partition of India
Further information:
Muttahida Qaumiyat Aur Islam

The

Allah Bakhsh Soomro also made it easier for the All-India Muslim League to demand the creation of a Pakistan.[21]

The

Sufi and later one of the important leaders in the forefront of the Sindh independence movement,[22] joined the Muslim League in 1938 and presented the Pakistan resolution in the Sindh Assembly. A key motivating factor was the promise of "autonomy and sovereignty for constituent units".[23]

This text was buried under the Minar-e-Pakistan during its building in the Ayub regime.[citation needed] In this session the political situation was analysed in detail and Muslim demanded a separate homeland only to maintain their identification and to safeguard their rights. Pakistan resolution was the landmark in the history of Muslim of South-Asia. It determined for the Muslims a true goal and their homeland in north-east and north-west. The acceptance of the Pakistan resolution accelerated the pace of freedom movement. It gave new energy and courage to the Muslims who gathered around Muhammad Ali Jinnah for struggle for freedom.[citation needed]

Commemoration

The Minar-e-Pakistan, where the Lahore Resolution was passed.
  • To commemorate the event,
    Iqbal Park
    where the resolution was passed.
  • 23 March (
    Islamic Republic in the world.[24]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0195774612
    .
  2. ISBN 978-1780768182
    .
  3. ^ "The Case of Sindh - G.M. Syed's deposition in court (Part 4)". GMSyed.org. Naeen Sindh Academy. Retrieved 20 July 2018.
  4. Now or Never; Are We to Live or Perish Forever?, pamphlet, published 28 January. (Rehmat Ali at the time was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge
    )
  5. ISBN 978-0-19-503412-7
    . Jinnah's Lahore address lowered the final curtain on any prospects for a single united independent India ... once his mind was made up he never reverted to any earlier position ... The ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity had totally transformed himself into Pakistan's great leader. All that remained was for his party first, then his inchoate nation, and then his British allies to agree to the formula he had resolved upon.
  6. ISBN 9780511558856
    .
  7. ^ Jinnah, Mohammed Ali (9 March 1940). "The Constitutional Future of India: Two Nations in India". Time & Tide. Vol. 21, no. 10. pp. 238–240.
  8. ^ The following is the full list of the 25 original, formally designated members of the Special Working Committee of the All India Muslim League, 1940, which met between 21 and 24 March 1940; see Programme of the All India Muslim League's 27th Annual session, to be held in from Lahore 22 to 24 March 1940, at the National Archives of Pakistan, Islamabad, the Quaid i Azam Papers, File 1354, and which largely drafted the Lahore Resolution. Also ref Attique Zafar Sheikh, The Pakistan Resolution and the Working Committee of the All India Muslim League, 1940 Islamabad: National Archives of Pakistan, 1998, p. 92, citing the following list of the members:
  9. ^ Syed Iftikhar Ahmed (1983), Essays on Pakistan, Alpha Bravo Publishers, Lahore, OCLC 12811079
  10. ISBN 0-19-579538-5
    . In the open session, on 24 March, the resolution was moved ... by Fazlul Haq, and was seconded by Khaliquzzaman (UP), Zafar Ali Khan (Punjab), Aurangzeb (NWFP), and Haroon (Sindh).
  11. ^ a b "An interpretation of the Lahore Resolution". Dawn. 23 March 2013.
  12. I H Qureshi
    , (1965), Struggle for Pakistan, Karachi
  13. ISBN 969-404-008-6
  14. ^ "23 March Pakistan Resolution Day". Pakistan Muslim league (N) USA Official Website. Retrieved 14 March 2019.
  15. ^ "Text of the 1940 Lahore Resolution of the All-India Muslim League by Brian McMorrow". PBase. Retrieved 14 March 2019.
  16. ^ "Lahore Resolution". banglapedia.org.
  17. ISBN 9788171004324
    . Within five weeks of the passage of the Pak resolution, an assembly of nationalist Muslims under the name of the Azad Muslim Conference was convened in Delhi. The Conference met under the presidentship of Khan Bahadur Allah Bakhsh, the then Chief Minister of Sind.
  18. ISBN 9781108621236
    .
  19. ^ Haq, Mushir U. (1970). Muslim politics in modern India, 1857-1947. Meenakshi Prakashan. p. 114. This was also reflected in one of the resolutions of the Azad Muslim Conference, an organization which attempted to be representative of all the various nationalist Muslim parties and groups in India.
  20. ^ a b Ahmed, Ishtiaq (27 May 2016). "The dissenters". The Friday Times. However, the book is a tribute to the role of one Muslim leader who steadfastly opposed the Partition of India: the Sindhi leader Allah Bakhsh Soomro. Allah Bakhsh belonged to a landed family. He founded the Sindh People's Party in 1934, which later came to be known as 'Ittehad' or 'Unity Party'. ... Allah Bakhsh was totally opposed to the Muslim League's demand for the creation of Pakistan through a division of India on a religious basis. Consequently, he established the Azad Muslim Conference. In its Delhi session held during April 27–30, 1940 some 1400 delegates took part. They belonged mainly to the lower castes and working class. The famous scholar of Indian Islam, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, feels that the delegates represented a 'majority of India's Muslims'. Among those who attended the conference were representatives of many Islamic theologians and women also took part in the deliberations ... Shamsul Islam argues that the All-India Muslim League at times used intimidation and coercion to silence any opposition among Muslims to its demand for Partition. He calls such tactics of the Muslim League as a 'Reign of Terror'. He gives examples from all over India including the NWFP where the Khudai Khidmatgars remain opposed to the Partition of India.
  21. ^ a b c Ali, Afsar (17 July 2017). "Partition of India and Patriotism of Indian Muslims". The Milli Gazette.
  22. ^ G. M. Syed. A Nation in Chains
  23. ^ G. M. Syed. The Case of Sindh (Chapter 2)
  24. ^ Stanford M. Mirkin (1966), What Happened when: A Noted Researcher's Almanac of Yesterdays, I. Washburn, New York City. OCLC 390802 (First published in 1957 under title: When did it happen?)

External links

Wikimedia Atlas of Pakistan

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